Abbott must fund longer
child abuse royal commission(Sydney Morning Herald) July 4 – (Opinion: Editorial) Australians have been disgusted - and many have
felt guilt-ridden - that a public figure as trusted and seemingly innocuous as
Rolf Harris was allowed to get away with sexual abuse of vulnerable children
over decades.

ARTS &
ENTERTAINMENT

Penny Chapman returns to
the devil’s playground of her youth (The Australian) July 5 - IN 1991, when the first episode of Brides of Christ screened on the
ABC, Kerry Packer, the bullish proprietor and master of the Channel Nine
universe, rang his chief programmer demanding to know: “Did we pass on that nun
shit?”

CATHOLIC
CHURCH

Archbishop backs
cleaners in wage dispute(Sydney Morning Herald) July 5 - The leader of Canberra's Catholics has called on the federal
government to protect the wage rates of cleaners, describingthem as the "new Aussie battlers".

INTERNATIONAL
STORIES

Abuse

Pope Francis to meet sex
abuse victims(Sydney Morning
Herald) July 5 - Pope Francis will meet victims of paedophile priests for the first
time, as a Vatican commission moves to address the problem of clerical sex
abuse in developing countries.

Catholic
Church

Pope Francis' wicked
workload(Sydney Morning
Herald) July 1 - Rome: Pope Francis has personally greeted 12,000 people after his
morning masses, read 50 letters a day from the public and spent 150 hours
greeting people in St Peter's Square since his election last year.

Islam

What's in a name?
Islamic banking rebrands in attempt to go mainstream (The West Australian) July 2 - (Reuters) - Islamic banking is based on core principles of the
religion. So it is striking that some banks are removing the word
"Islam" from their names - a sign of both the potential of Islamic
finance to grow, and the obstacles to it becoming mainstream.

China bans Ramadan fast
in Muslim region (The Mercury,
Hobart) July 4 - Students and civil servants in China's Muslim northwest, where Beijing
is enforcing a security crackdown following deadly unrest, have been ordered to
avoid taking part in traditional fasting during the Islamic holy month of
Ramadan.

In Turkey, party goes on
despite new alcohol curbs (The
West Australian) July 6 - Istanbul (Turkey) (AFP) - The sun is setting but the party is only
just beginning for 29-year-old Merve Kortan, one of the many young Turks who
hang out in Istanbul's vibrant Beyoglu district.

Religious
Violence

Christians, Hindus
describe tribal life with the Taliban (The West Australian) July 4 - Bannu (Pakistan) (AFP) - Christians and Hindus who fled from a
military offensive against insurgents in tribal northwest Pakistan say the
Taliban treated them with relative tolerance, contrary to the militants' brutal
reputation.

Islamic State and the
Levant: why we should be worried, and why we should not(Sydney Morning Herald) July 2 – (Opinion: Rodger Shanahan) The claim from the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL) regarding the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that
spans from Diyala in Iraq to Aleppo in northern Syria, its re-naming as The
Islamic State and the promotion of their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the
khalif says much about itsaspirations
but far less about its capability.

Australia has no
solution for Syria or Iraq(Sydney Morning Herald) July 4 – (Opinion: Jack Waterford) Australians, and our security services, have
worked themselves into the appropriate sort of lather about ISIL, the
supposedly jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is, according
to the consensus of western intelligence agencies, the latest greatest threat
to the peace of the world.

Islamic radical barred
from WA jails (The West
Australian) July 1 - Radical Islamic preacher Junaid Thorne has been banned from visiting
WA jails after The West Australian revealed he had provided religious lessons
to inmates inside Hakea Prison.

POLITICS

Jihadist fears spark
review of evidence laws(Sydney Morning Herald) July 1 - The federal government is examining ways to make it easier to prosecute
Australian jihadist fighters returning from the Middle East, amid growing fears
of the creation of a mini-state in the region that could export terrorism.

RELIGION
& SOCIETY

Larry Graham: time to die
should be a personal choice(Sydney Morning Herald) July 5 – (Opinion: Larry Graham) As I sat with another family member who was
dying I mused about our civilization, its ethics, its judgement and more
importantly how little it values human beings.